tavis: good evening from los angeles, i'm "tavis smiley." first up tonight, a look at what could be a major breakthrough in the fight against breast cancer. dr. vincent tuohy and his team at the cleveland clinic now believe they have found a vaccine that could potentially prevent breast cancer in adult women in the same way vaccines have been used in childhood diseases for generations now. the doctor tonight on how and when the new vaccine could become a reality. also tonight, grammy winning musician and breast cancer survivor melissa etheridge is here. she is out no with a new cd called "fearless love," and remains an advocate for breast cancer research. we glad you joined us. a look at the new breakthrough in the fight against breast cancer and musician melissa etheridge coming up right now. >> all i know is his name is james. he needs extra help with his reading. >> i'm james. >> yes.

>> to everyone making a difference, you help us all live better. >> nationwide insurance proudly supports "tavis smiley." tavis and nationwide insurance, working to improve financial literacy and the economic powerment that comes with it. >> nationwide is on your side. tavis: and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. tavis: dr. vincent tuohy is a noted immune noll gist at the cleveland clinic. he's also the principal investigator on this new study on what could be a watershed moment in the fight against breast cancer. he joins us tonight from cleveland. dr. tuohy, an honor to have you

on the program, sir. >> it's my pleasure. i'm delighted to be here. thank you. tavis: you are, as i mentioned, an immuneologist, not a cancer specialist. how did you end up being the guy at the center of this kind of breakthrough? >> yeah, that's -- this is my first manuscript on cancer. i'm not known as a cancer researcher. and i'm certainly not a breast cancer expert. but i spent my whole career targeting the immune response against highly specific targeted and created several mouse models for human diseases that include heart failure, multiple sclerosis, deafness, infertility and so forth. i just thought that it would be a nice opportunity as i'm entering this stage of my career to try not only to destroy organs and create these animal

models for testing new therapies and understanding disease mechanisms, but also to actually destroy the tumors derived from these organs and a good start i thought would be the breast and breast cancer. tavis: tell me more then about the study involving these mice. >> yes, well, this goes back about eight years or so when we realized from the -- just examining the mortality/morbidity of a variety of different childhood diseases, that we -- that we had a wonderful childhood vaccination program that protected us in a magnificent way from the development of childhood diseases like measles and polio, but yet it stops at age 13 with vaccination against the human papilloma virus in the teens. continue just ended. there was no no more vaccinations scheduled until the '60's with herpes for shingles

and nume acaucus. so there's a giant cap i thought in our health care in our vaccine, we did not attempt to try any protective immune therapy against adult diseases that we encounter when we reach our 40's, like breast cancer and prostate cancer and colon cancer and so forth. so this was a very big defish i thought in health care -- deficiency i thought in health care and i thought the model to approach therapy or protection against these diseases what the child vaccination program, which is really what we call a pro foe lack tick vaccination, a protective vaccination given before you get the disease so you don't get the disease. and that's what the motivation was for my research. tavis: that's the motivation. tell me now more specifically about what you now have discovered in the lab.

>> well, the big obstacle of developing a profle at tick or protective vaccine against breast cancer, the giant hurdle that had to be overcome, when you vaccinate, you must vaccinate against self. there are no viruses that are known to really cause the majority of breast cancer. so we have to vaccinate against self. that means that we actually have to vaccinate against a protein that's found in normal breast tissues and normal tissues. that would cause what we call autocxsgpreimmune complications or inflammation and damage to those tissues. that would be an undesirable and inappropriate outcome in order to protect ourselves from breast cancer. breast cancer is really an overgrowth, unregulated overgrowth of normal cells that just lose their ability to stop multiplying, and they are no longer normal but they do make normal proteins that are found and overexpressed in the tumor

and that are also found in the breast. however, we found that they also make some proteins that are not overexpressed in the normal, nonlactating, healthy, normal breast tissue but only in the lactating breast tissue. so this i thought gave us an opportunity to target these lactation-dependent proteins that are overexpressed in the tumors but not expressed in the normal breast tissue. and the reason we did this is because there are two events that take place, i think, in as an adult -- as women age in their 40's, one is an increasing risk for breast cancer, an increasing need to be protectford it and at the same time a decreasing need to use the breast for lactation, for breastfeeding and for really survival of the species. that's what the breastfeeding and lactation is all about. so we thought we could take

advantage of this aging process, the natural aging process in women and target a lactation protein overexpressed in the breast tumor but not really expressed in the majority of women as they age and go through their 40's and 50's with increasing risk for breast cancer. and it turned out that it worked really well. all of the mice that we vaccinated were protected against breast cancer but showed absolutely no sign of inflammation in the normal breast tissue. so we were delighted to see this finding. and i think what it does now, it opens up the opportunity to be very careful in selecting the targets but in targeting self in such a way that we're protected against a variety of different illnesses that are really -- i think quite extensive. just open -- it's just open to our imagination. tavis: so how hopeful then -- i hear the delight. i note your use of the word

delighted. so let me ask you, given that you're being cautious about this, how hopeful women should be about what's happening in your lab. >> well, i think hope is a very good thing, don't you think? tavis: yes. >> it's a very good thing. we all need hope. but we also need a big of reality, and i think we have to understand that this is a very embryonic shape that we're in, very embryonic form of this prototypic vaccine. we have a long, long way to go. there are lots of obstacles to overcome. we have about ten years before we can get this to a healthy patient population that's cancer free. so we have quite a ways to go and there's the concern that it may not directly translate from mouse to human. that's always a concern. but, you know, at the same time my feeling is if we can do it in mice, we can do it in humans.

tavis: in short order, in terms that we can understand, what's your concern about why it might not translate from mice to humans? >> well, there's a lot of species variations in terms of protein expression. the inflammatory change that's we failed to see in mice may occur in normal women. we're not sure of that yet. we're going to look very carefully and that's why it's going to take a long time. we have to approach this safely, very carefully. however, all of the concerns that we have, that everyone has, are certainly legitimate. at the same time i don't think they should be -- we should be too skeptical, so skeptical that we don't even try this. i think this is an exciting opportunity for us to explore a new way of protecting us from adult diseases. tavis: is it fair to say in closing here that you and your team are encouraged to work even harder now to figure this out? >> we're working very hard.

and we're determined to carry this through until we see whether or not either this or something like this, an evolving variation of this, could also work. we're not finished by a long shot. we have a long way to go and there are many, many diseases before us. i'm hoping that the medical community takes up this initiative and also tries to -- to apply the criteria for target selection to a variety of other diseases. i think the possibilities to me seemed -- i wouldn't say endless. i'm always accused of exaggerating but quite extensive. tavis: i can tell you this, there are a lot of people who are hopeful now given these results, a lot of people who feel a sense of urgency and excitement and for any of us who have lost a loved one to breast cancer, we can't support you and cheer lead you enough to keep moving forward. so it's a great breakthrough. i'm glad you had time to talk to

us about it tonight, dr. tuohy. i will let you get back in the lab and back to work. you have a lot of stuff to do. >> thank you very much. great talking to you. tavis: my pleasure. up next, grammy winning artist and breast cancer survivor in her own right, melissa etheridge. stay with us. pleased to welcome melissa etheridge back to this program, the popular and prolific grammy winner is out now with her tenth studio cd called "fearless love." from the new project, here is some of the video for the title track, "fearless love." ♪ i am what i'm afraid of so what am i afraid of i need a fearless love don't need to feel the end oh, you can't hold me now you will never hold me again

i want to live my life in happiness i want a fearless love i won't settle for anything less ♪ tavis: we're back. the rock roots on this project, huh? >> yeah, yeah. tavis: back to the rock stuff. >> yeah, decided, i have been doing this for 20 years now. i've been here and there and up and down and in and out. i have been introspective, i have been spiritual. i thought it's time to put it all together and hit it as hard as i can. tavis: you did that. when i first saw the project come across my desk, it actually -- it arrested me for a moment. and i just sat and looked and thought about that title, fear also love. it unsettled me, init lech chullly made me think for a minute, what did she mean. >> good. that's what i wanted to do. tavis: when you heard the title track, though, it makes sense when you hear the actual lyrical

content. >> i want a fearless love. i think the journey so far has taken me to a place of understanding that every choice we make in our life, in this world n. this reality, everything from what we eat, what we say, to the large choices are choices between love and fear. and as i've been trying to guide myself in my life to make the choice of love, and if you can keep doing that, if you cannot fall into the fear and grab hold of the oh, but what if and the pain and the fear, if you can go in the direction of love, then you can actually live a life filled with love. tavis: what i was thinking was whether or not -- now a philosophical exchange here. can we go there? >> yes. tavis: what i was thinking about is whether or not it is possible to have love, to experience love, in fact to be loved and still be afraid?

>> well, if you're asking me my opinion is that everything is love, and if you follow this -- this road of, ok, if there's fear in love, thenn you choose love, you're going to find out that even the things that you do fear, there is a way to love them. so you can definitely love because that's what we're sent here to do every day. if you can do that, then when the fear comes in, you find a way to perceive it, to bring an understanding and even that can be love. how about that? tavis: i'm going to wrestle with that for -- i'm going to marinade on that for a while. >> marinade on it. tavis: marinade on it. you mentioned earlier you have been doing this for a while now. two decades, and something that seems like it just came out yesterday. but why at this point in your life, at this point in your career, a cd wrestling with songs of love and fear?

>> that was going to be the title at first. i was going -- it was going to be called songs of love and fear and my daughter said that's way too long. she's 13. tavis: too long for a cd. >> she's very, very opinionated. why? because that's where i'm at. i'm 49. i've been in this business -- tavis: you say that so proudly, too. i am 49. >> yes, you get to this point finally when you're not fighting the, you know, whatever concepts we have about getting older. it's like -- it's a celebration. it's like you have wisdom and this stuff that starts coming and i'm digging it a lot. and part of that is i've had this experience, i've had the success. i went through breast cancer. i examined my life and i have come out now with this -- with the thoughts there are to do songs of love and fear, to present stories, some of these are even third person. i don't usually write in the third person but some of these are. and others are -- are just

myself and the experiences of love or fear and/or both. tavis: since you mentioned you are a breast cancer survivor, of course i mentioned at the top of the show, so ironic that we have you on tonight when we just got through talking to dr. tuohy. what do you make of that research? >> i tell you, it's -- the medical community, it's very exciting. everyone is working very, very hard. i have been putting my time and energy into the space of the human body and how it is connected to the emotional body. you know, 400 years ago when they told dick heart, yes, they could study medicine but have you to leave the spirit over here to the church. we were separated. and it's time for the spirit and the body and the physical, the medicine of science, to come together. yes, we can invent immunizations. i have seen some incredible stuff where they've been able to change the d.n.a. of a t cell in

a rat, and it will eat a tumor up in 45 minutes. i've seen it. i saw it on the computer. and, yes, all of that can happen. what is really going to save us is when we understand what health is. health is a balance. cancer, like he said, is not a virus that comes in and gets you. it's when your body, we're immunizing self, i think is what he said, immunizing self. that should give us a clue -- tavis: the clue. >> the clue that it's inside of us and maybe all of this processed food and all of this insane stress to work our fingers to the bone so that we can have some more stuff, maybe we need to re-examine sort of where we are in this new millennium. tavis: re-examine it. it sounds to me that your journey, your safe passage through your breast cancer scare caused you to do so introspective thinking about your own space, your own body. >> oh, yeah. that's -- that's the -- i'm one

of those people that will say my cancer was a gift, that -- tavis: not everybody can say that. >> that's true. yes, it does take you. some -- we lose people to cancer. my cancer woke me up, gave me a perspective on life and spirit. and now i'm the person if you come to me and say, oh, my gosh, i've just been diagnosed with cancer, i say that's awesome. now you get to change. and i try to tell others if it hasn't come knocking on your door yet, make the change now. there's a reason that half of us have cancer. half of us. our bodies aren't defective. there's something -- there's the way that we have been choosing our society to squeeze into this western crazy lifestyle that we have is hurting us. let's re-examine it. that's where i'm at. tavis: the song, you're talking about it here now but you sing about it on the project, "drag

me away." >> yeah, that's -- tavis: tell me about that. >> "drag me away." tavis: track nush five. >> a lot of the songs on this album, like i said, i wanted to rock and throw back to the old rock & roll from the '70's and i love the who, rolling stones, led zeppelin. right in your face stuff. "drag me away" is one of those and it's a song about, i'm not going to die. they couldn't -- they can't- not only am i not going to die but i'm not afraid of dyeing. and the first song in "fearless love" i say i am what i am afraid of. and i'm not going to be afraid of dyeing. i'm not going to now live my life now that i had cancer, oh, it might get me again. i'm going to celebrate myself, my life. and i'm not going to die. and that's what "drag me away" is about. tavis: i popped this in last night and i was trying to this -- why think when i could just ask you. who cares about thinking when

you don't have to. i was trying to think of whether or not, since this is your tenth project, whether or not you were as introspective in your lyrical content prior to your breast cancer scare as you seem to be now. and i was trying to think -- just going back to your disk ography, going back through your corpus in my head and trying to remember. >> well, my work had been before very -- to me i was being introspective but that part of me, the only part i was examining was the emotional life of relationship and -- and whether it was pain or joy and desire and it was -- it was limited. breast cancer definitely after that opened me up to, wait a minute, i have a desire now for my life, for the quality of my life. just as i used to for a lover.

so it's a different sort of introspection. tavis: we talked about how breast cancer changes your perspective on things. you mentionedier daughter earlier, and it's because of her, your 13-year-old, because of her in part that we have this title. >> that's true. tavis: it was going to be something else. mom, that's not going to work. which raises this question for me, how breast cancer set aside for the moment, how being a morning, how being a parent has changed your music, if at all. >> that also is a life-changer. people ask me, you know, is being a parent the be all end all? i said it's definitely up to the person. it's difficult. it can be very difficult and it can be extremely healing and that's what i have found, that the children are mirrors. everyone is say mirror. children especially because they're day and night and all day long, and they will just give back to you what you're giving out. and so you can feel your own

vibration coming right back at you from a child. and it -- you develop more patience and understanding how life goes on and your place in the world. so, yeah, probably having children has been even more of an effect on me than anything else. tavis: when i got the project, as i said i popped it in last night, i looked at it and i, of course, went immediately to the title track because i wanted hear what this "fearless love" thing was all about. i started looking more carefully and i skipped down to track number six. guess what i'm from? >> indiana! he's from indiana. that's right. tavis: yeah, track number six is called "indiana." so i'm glad we made the cut. how did we make the cut? >> i tell you, i'm actually from kansas myself. midwestern girl. tavis: you sang a song called "kansas"? >> no. i mentioned kansas in many

songs. tavis: how did we get a whole song? >> let me tell you, not my ex, but my partner tammy, is from the indiana. and that song is inspired by and about her. it's my observing of her experience. i wrote it last year, and it's about a girl growing up in a -- in indiana. small town, poor and having the big dreams. and it's about -- kind of an american experience. you can grow up and dream those big dreams and the long nights and small woman with the big dreams and you can go into this great country and make those dreams come true. and yet it doesn't always make you happy. and experience the woman or she actually experienced having children, gives her more clarity and more understanding in her life. so that's why indiana gets it, because it was about her. tavis: forget indiana.

we'll go to kansas now. speaking of kansas, here's the extra question to your point about dreams, has your life, is your life mirroring anywhere near what your dreams were when you were growing up in kansas? >> i've already made those dreams come frue. those dreams were the dreams of a young mind, of a adolescent or young adult reaching out for kind of what we are led to believe will make us happy. and i got there. you know, i won a grammy. i won an oscar. i achieved those things. tavis: what do you do when your life exceeds your dreams? >> you dream more dreams. tavis: right. >> you dig down and remember what that felt like to desire, because that's what we're here to do, to desire and create. if you stop creating, su just -- it's over. tavis: i'm glad melissa is dreaming big dreams and still

putting out good stuff. the new project for melissa etheridge is called "fearless love." and we will thank her 13-year-old for that title. melissa, good to have you on the program. >> thank you very much. always a pleasure. tavis: that's our show for tonight. catch me on the weekends as public radio international. you can catch us through our website on pbs.org and i will see you next time here on pbs. good night and keep the faith. r warren gray. that's next time. we'll see you then. >> all i know is his name is james and he needs extra help with his reading. >> i'm james. >> yes.

>> to everyone making a difference. you help us all live better. >> nationwide insurance proudly supports "tavis smiley." tavis and nationwide insurance working to approve financial literacy and the economic empowerment that comes with it. >> and contributions from viewers like you. thank you. [captioning made possible by kcet public television]

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ears up, everyone. i just got a letter. a letter? who's it from, raggs? my good friend wally the whippet. well, what does it say? it says he wants me to go away on a vacation with him. raggs, you lucky pup. yeah, going away on vacation is so much fun. so where are you going to go? um, wally says he wants me to decide where to go. that's great, raggs. no, it's not. it's a problem. why is it a problem, raggs? yeah, there are so many fun places you could choose from. but i've never, ever been away on a vacation before. i don't know where to go or what to do or anything. whoa. that is a problem. don't worry, raggs. we'll help you work it out. you will?